Figure of Doom

The creature watched from the dark, hungrily surveying its ever diminishing prey as the egg timer of existence sprang leaks aplenty....

A shadowy figure stood near his bedside in the otherwise empty room.  Looming ominously from the dark, the improbable wraith seemed almost to be sneering at him, at times grinning in a manner which gently chilled his blood. It was waiting, waiting patiently for the hour to arrive.

His ragged and raspy cough, worsening with each agonizing fit that occurred, had to him begun to resemble a countdown of sorts; a grim and painful reminder of his ever diminishing ember of existence. 

The figure of doom itself was growing closer, drawing nearer. Almost imperceptibly and yet unmistakably, the progress of this terrifying omen was yet another reminder of what was coming.  Was it hallucinogenic? He hoped so. Hoped in his heavily weakened and irrevocably deteriorating condition, that his mind was playing tricks on him….. No not tricks, a sick joke, the sickest of jokes. An apex of dark humour….. But he wasn’t laughing.

Had he the energy, he would in fact have screamed. Screamed and wailed and writhed for all he was worth. No, more than that; he’d be running, pelting it as far away as he could from this terrifying date with destiny.

Alas however, there was no energy, no fight. He didn’t feel worth much at all any longer, and the only thing running here was time, and out, faster and faster, quicker and quicker, hours as minutes, minutes as seconds.  Ever decreasing and ever more disparate beats of the heart the only measuring tool of time left that meant anything anymore. In life he’d been an impatient man, hating to wait, hating to be kept in suspense. That was funny….

The mocking creature loomed over him now as he lay helplessly in his sodden prison of supposed comfort. A thin and sinewy hand creaked from its shadowy and illogically composed being.  The finger if you could call it such of that hand pointing, pointing right at him, directly into his soul.

It was not an accusatory gesture, not one of blame or even any particular identification. But one of finality, of inevitability.  Who he was, who he had been up to that point was irrelevant.  He was meat for the grinder, just the latest offering. Nothing special about this, nothing individual to him.  It was business as usual for this nightmarish visitor and he was merely the latest piece of it.

The rest of the world was growing hazy now. Those material and transient surroundings; the bed in which he lay, the room in which that moonlit bed sat, all were swimming into one now. Losing their focus, relinquishing their meaning; their structure seemingly buckling and giving. As if reality itself were a balloon that had been popped and all of the life was ebbing out of it.

The grim spectre however (be it real or imaginary) remained startlingly defined and solid in relation to its dwindling surroundings. An utterly clear figure in contrast to the ever more soft focus surroundings….

It felt as if it had already gotten as near to him as it could get and yet it seemed to grow yet nearer. As if it now had stepped beyond some hitherto unseen line, actually passing somewhere beyond his physical being; as if stepping into his very self. An invasive arrival in his world of a presence, the meaning of which to him was quite unmistakable.

 

The coughing had stopped, but it wasn’t a good thing. For so too had his ragged breathing ceased….

For a time, only an ominous silence filled the fetid air of that room.

Somewhere out there beyond his window in the dark, an owl hooted, a fox cried.

He cried, tears streaming from his eyes. But it wasn’t an emotional thing at this point, it was an involuntary action.  His whole face and eyes felt squeezing tight and the tears were almost pumped from his ducts like toothpaste from a tube.  His whole body felt clutched in an iron grip.

 

The last thing he saw in this realm at least was the creature of darkness turn to leave. Issuing forth into the blackness of the abstract, it had other souls to claim this night. Other stories ready to reach their final end. His was already forgotten.

 

The room grew dark, empty, unobserved the man lay still, doing nothing. Empty.

 

The story was over.

 

Author's Note

Thanks a lot for taking the time to read my work I appreciate it. Any thoughts you may have are greatly welcomed.